Day trading Future for a living ES YM NQ

"Oh the YM, you have to get a real big move or trade minimum double your normal lot size, or commissions will eat any profit you get"

dumbest thing i've read in a while

8 - 10 YM points = approximately 1 ES point

most brokers charge roughly the same commission for a ES vs. YM trade

YM gives u much better spread. so please explain how a 1 point move in ES doesn't "eat any profit" but a 8 point move in YM DOES.

YM is more profitable for most scalping purposes since the spread is better . you have a spread of less than 1/2 the ES. unless you are playing pure marketmaker microscalps (selling ask/buying bid of .25 increments) in ES, the YM is much more cost efficient.

you do not need to "double your normal" size.

One ES point is $50

10 YM is $50 (and it has better spread)

i find it hard to believe that u are actually a trader if u can't understand this

second of all, the comments about ETF's are also wrong

the ETF's are arb'd by the same people who trade the cash baskets and the futures.

they cannot move that disparately at all from the futures because arbitrage makes that a profit opportunity.

i traded my YM strategy for about 9 months using DIA.

DIA actually has worse fills than YM (and SPY worse than ES).

in periods of frenzied market activities i have seen crossed bid/ask on SPY and DIA. i have NEVER seen this EVER in YM.

simply put, DIA and SPY have worse fills than YM/ES not the other way around.

DIA and SPY SSF's are even worse than that, fwiw :)

you could get the "functional equivalent" of trading YM by trading 500 share blocks of DIA.

those would both yield you $5 per dow point. but the DIA would give you inferior tax treatment, poorer fills, fewer hours of live trading, etc.

if u understand how arbitrage (and fungibility) works, you will see that DIA *has* to move in sync with YM

ETF's are just less scary because they aren't "scary futures"

if the bottom drops out of YM, I can guarantee you that DIA won't offer any more safety
 
infact, to be fair even etfs suck big time..still, it ain't true that they have da same spikes of 10-15points in matter of just 1sec, beofore revertin' to da price they were before[ym/dia comparison], nobody can arb those spike cuz they sudden'n'last a sec, max 2'n'they only on ym, therefore there's nothin' to arb on dia.
 
I'm daytrading the futures. Mainly the er2 and eur/usd. I've been profitable, mainly due to very selective entry points and quick exits using trailing stops. I'm willing to give up the profit but not willing to go negative once I've gotten 4-5 ticks in the black.

I've noticed that er2 is erratic so it's easier to get stopped out. More and more, I'm starting to prefer the currency futures since they trend better. Some of my biggest winners have been with the euros.

I'm mainly a trend follower.
 
Quote from naztrader:

Do you talk the way you type? If you do, that's pretty funny.
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He might be using one of those software programs where you talk and
it does the typing for you?

I think grob109 uses one of them too. But grob is a little more
distinguished in his speaking, even though it is not as understandable...:p
 
Quote from whitster:

...the comments about ETF's are also wrong

the ETF's are arb'd by the same people who trade the cash baskets and the futures.

they cannot move that disparately at all from the futures because arbitrage makes that a profit opportunity.

i traded my YM strategy for about 9 months using DIA.

DIA actually has worse fills than YM (and SPY worse than ES).

in periods of frenzied market activities i have seen crossed bid/ask on SPY and DIA. i have NEVER seen this EVER in YM.

simply put, DIA and SPY have worse fills than YM/ES not the other way around.

DIA and SPY SSF's are even worse than that, fwiw :)

you could get the "functional equivalent" of trading YM by trading 500 share blocks of DIA.

those would both yield you $5 per dow point. but the DIA would give you inferior tax treatment, poorer fills, fewer hours of live trading, etc.

if u understand how arbitrage (and fungibility) works, you will see that DIA *has* to move in sync with YM

ETF's are just less scary because they aren't "scary futures"

if the bottom drops out of YM, I can guarantee you that DIA won't offer any more safety
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Priceless.

Last trader I heard say something like that was a few months ago in Montreal while listening to a friend (institutional trader) on his lunch break telling a new guy in his office to listen up.

:cool:

Mark
 
I daytrade futures but still trade options month to month. I am sure many people just trade futures but having options and futures lets me avoid banking all my growth/income on one product/time frame. The options are month to month and the futures are intraday, all on the indexes.

Sometimes it is nice to trade the indexes using different products on different time frames :D
 
hi boys and girls

I am doing quite well this yr trading futures

however ...

90 % of the time I do not trade
stock index futures even though
I think I have a small edge there

why ?

because I have a bigger edge at this time
in other markets I am trading

I wll be the first to admit that I have not been
consistant like this ... in fact the last time I was doing this good was in 2000
( when I had a huge edge - but this was in equities
not futures and that edge went the way of the dodo bird )

good luck to all of you trying to succeed in a very very hard career path

if you can somehow use your knowledge
and ambition to work for a trading firm
with a shot at making 6-7 figures
that might be a better idea
even if the odds of doing it that way
are small ... at least you would not
be risking your money all the time
and be able to build up some trading capital
for the time you go on your own
and get paid a real salary with no risk
other than being fired or laid off

good luck to you

:)
 
Quote from Bitstream:

...da odds of makin' it are stuck vs u big, big time.
More...

That is a fact, but how do you know that ET members do not make money trading futures consistently? There is no point showing PnL on ET, how is that going to benefit the poster or anyone for that matter, apart from gaining respect from ET members? That can be achieved in other ways. Don't get me wrong, there are loads of strange posts on ET, one has to screen believable from unbelievable comments.
 
Quote from romik:

That is a fact, but how do you know that ET members do not make money trading futures consistently? There is no point showing PnL on ET, how is that going to benefit the poster or anyone for that matter, apart from gaining respect from ET members? That can be achieved in other ways. Don't get me wrong, there are loads of strange posts on ET, one has to screen believable from unbelievable comments.
More...

kk, lemme be clear; didn't say or imply that for sure there are no profitable futs traders here on et but there's just no proof 'bout that'n'if somethin' everythin' points at da contrary..almost all those lookin' fww to make a livin' by tradin' futs blew in matter of months if not weeks; this can be a sign that if they here they very rare indeed while [apparently] there are some consistent equity traders here postin' their results on pnl thread'n'elsewhere; u have to wonder why if futs where so good why there are no prop traders tradin' 'em only'n'make money or at least why there are none showin' they can do it consistently....listen, u got dozens of guys showin' their stock trades results while none, not 1 showin their futs results, kinda odd innit[?]don't get me wrong i trade those futs as well but not as my instrument of choice, they untradable day in day out there's very little edge when not trendin'; stocks are much more forgivin', innit[?] besides is not just da pnl proof but common sense, if u tried to trade 'em u know how difficult they are'n'it's a well known fact there it is extremely diff to find an edge in futs.
 
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